We read God's Word to realize who God is. He is who says He is in His Word, and our imaginations are usually unreliable. If you don't read His Word, you cannot know Him as He ought to be known. God said, "I am who I am" not "I am whoever you want me to be." You don't get to make your own personal Jesus, although many have tried to do so. Sometimes a lack of faith, a lack of passion and a lack of surrender arise from a deficient vision of God. We trade the God that is for a much smaller version. It's like Thomas Jefferson who believed in God but didn't believe in miracles. And so in his Bible he took a razor and cut out every Gospel account of Jesus doing miracles. His Bible now sits in the Smithsonian Institute, an artifact of a defective faith. "A god small enough to be understood is not big enough to be worshipped!" observes Evelyn Underhill. Do you prefer a God who is small, who thinks like we think, who likes what we like, who we can manage? It is a heinous sin to do this. The Word and the Spirit are the antidotes. Even creation declares the glory of God. When your God is too small, your problems are too big! But when your God is great, your problems pale into insignificance and you stand in awe as you worship the King. How big is your God? Big enough to intervene? Big enough to be trusted? Big enough to be held in awe and ultimate respect? Remember: the more you know God, the bigger He becomes.
